Welcome to this week’s edition of the Architecture Insights newsletter. Artificial intelligence for architects, landscape architects, and designers.

Edition #40:

• Job Security: How the fields of architecture and landscape will be impacted by AI.

• Midjourney Updates: The new image personalization feature.

• Text-to-Video AI: Does it have use cases for designers?

• Growth School: A free workshop for AI professionals.

Job Security in Architecture & Landscape

Architects and landscape architects are facing a big change in trying to understand how AI will affect their jobs and job security. This is a growing concern and it often leads to more questions than answers.

A growing consensus suggests that AI may significantly reduce the time spent on typical office tasks. Estimates suggest a potential productivity increase of up to 30% in the coming years, with a more conservative estimate of 15% still considered significant.

These efficiency gains prompt questions regarding future pricing strategies for architects' services.

Design professionals might contemplate redefining their value proposition. Rather than solely calculating fees based on time invested, they could highlight the quality of the results, the innovation in their solutions, and the distinct human perspectives they contribute to projects.

It's important to understand that AI's impact on architecture goes beyond just saving time. AI not only simplifies certain tasks but also fosters creative exploration and data interpretation.

For example, AI tools can make early project images better and quickly go through lots of project documents. These tools don't have to take away jobs; they help architects improve their designs and focus on more important tasks.

In today's world, architects and landscape architects should use AI to help them, not replace them. AI can handle simple tasks, giving these professionals more time to focus on creative and complex parts of their work that need human skills and understanding, which AI can't do yet.

While AI presents challenges to traditional architectural practices, it also offers opportunities for growth and innovation. The key to job security in the age of AI lies not in resisting change but in adapting to it and leveraging it to enhance the value it provides to clients and society at large.

Midjourney Updates

This week Midjourney released a new feature called "personalization".

Midjourney's personalization feature enhances image creation by allowing users to tailor outputs through a simple process: rank image pairs on the website to inform the system of your aesthetic preferences.

Just add "--p" or "--personalize" to your prompts on Discord or the website to see this customization in action. Remember, you need to rank enough pairs before this feature is available. If you haven't ranked enough, you'll need to do more to activate personalization.

You can customize your prompts by using styles from other users. Just add their shortcode to your prompt, like this: "--p shortcode". This feature is available in Midjourney Version 6. To keep this setting for all your prompts, turn it on through the Discord or website interface.

The "--stylize" (--s) setting is very helpful. It lets you change the level of personalization from 0 to 1000. This is especially useful in architectural drawings, where getting the style just right is important. It makes sure the images created look like what you imagined, making the design process faster and more accurate.

Text-to-Video AI

Text-to-video tools have been a topic of discussion this week with tools like Sora and Gen-3 Alpha being showcased to the public by developers.

Tools like Sora and Runway Gen-3 Alpha show great potential, but there are still concerns about how useful and reliable they are for professional work. The use of text-to-video AI in architecture and landscape architecture is becoming more popular, but some people doubt if the technology is advanced enough.

The idea of creating videos from written descriptions is exciting. Imagine describing a building's layout, materials, and design, and instantly getting a video tour. This could change how architects show ideas to clients and improve designs.

Text-to-video AI could help landscape architects see design ideas like different plants, water features, and changes in the land. This would give a lively picture of how a landscape could change over time. But, today's tools might have trouble with the details of how plants and animals interact and the changes that come with different seasons, which are important in landscape design.

Today's text-to-video technology is impressive, but it might still have trouble capturing the precise details needed for architecture. Can it handle the complexity of large architectural projects?

Even with these improvements, more work is needed to fully use these tools in architecture and landscape design. Creating very detailed and accurate visualizations that meet professional standards is still a big challenge.

Text-to-video AI has a lot of potential for architecture and landscape architecture. It's not a matter of if, but when it will be fully realized. Tools like Sora and Runway Gen-3 Alpha are getting better, and the industry is excited for the day when these technologies will easily improve design and visualization, becoming essential in the creative process.